The diamond drill. (Crystal Falls, Iron County, Mich.) 1887-1996, 1887-07-23


There Is one sleeping-car porter in
this country who'll not die poor. II
thrift and smartness count for any
thing, said a gentleman who has just
returned from trip TO California.
''Soon after we left Omaha the porter
Of our car began 10 talk base ball and
20 let rs all know that he was base
ball crank. He grew rather familiar.
too, considering his station, but no.
body objected, for il Is always best on
cross-country trip 10 keep on the
good side of the porter. Among the
passengers were several gentlemen
who take little interest in base ball,
and SO long in the afternoon. when the
porter told about the sport some passen-
gers had had the week before. and sug-
gested that jus to Kill time We inn
itate their example. the gemmem
maxim up base ball pool at - a
guess, de gemman gnessin' clostist 10
Gle way de TO league games comes out
To take the pot. there were seven re-
sponses, After the money had been
paid into the hands of one who was
selected 10 act as stakeholder, and the
subscribers had written out the guesses
and signed their names 10 them, the
porter humbly asked permission To
come in. Though we all thought the
chap was displaying considerable
freshness, so long as he had suggested
the scheme, in which we had begun
10 take good deal of interest, there
was no one To object. So the porter
put up his 80 and filed his guess with
the stakeholder. The next day we got
paper at Cheyenne, and you can inn
agine how surprised we were when
we discovered that only one man in
the party had named the four winners,
and that man the porter. The way tho
fellow grinned when he put the $40
away in his pocket made me feel sus-
picious, and SO later on, when another
pool of the same kind was proposed I
decided To stay out and keep an eve on
the porter. About three o'clock the
train stopped at little station, and
saw the porter making break for the
telegraph Office. When he came ont
he had a message, which he was read
ing eagerly. He sat down i'm the smok-
ing car and scrubbed something ON a
piece of paper carefully consulting his
message rs he did so, and then walked
back 10 the slceping-car. remarking
that he'd give the gemmen a chance to
get part of de stuff back, and de-
posted with the stakeholder s. bill and
the slip of paper III seen him writing
on i'm the smoking-car.
Having found out what his game
was | took the stakeholder one side
and said to him: this darky Is bunkoing
Us. IL is now after o'clock. In New
York and Boston il is after o. The
games have been played. We haven't
been thinking of that, but this darby
has. lie just received a message tell
ing him which clubs won. and he has
named those clubs here. and expects to
take our money, just rs he did yestsr-
day
So the stake holder and took out all
the gucsses and changed them all To
read the same clubs that the porter had
named, and put them back. Then we
posted the other fellows. Next day
when the returns were opened and it
was found that each guesser had named
the four winners, IL was worth five
times 81 apiece To us TO see the express
sions which chased each other up and
down that shrewd darkys face
Chicago HeraidS Train Talk.